Fresh Ink

by Lamar Giles

  “Not me,” Yen-Yen said.

  I felt conflicted. It might seem weird, but power washing the graffiti so quickly seemed to add to the injustice. It’s like the administration wanted to erase the fact that the racist message ever appeared. It’s not like I wanted to read those words every day walking to class, but I didn’t want the words to simply disappear. I wanted everyone to see the truth—that even Stanford wasn’t free from this kind of hate.

  * * *

  —

  SUNDAY NIGHT. Royce and I were out late studying at a friend’s house. We walked across campus back to the dorms and slipped through the quad. The graffiti hadn’t been painted yet. I know. I remember gazing at the wall’s greenish lights cutting shapes into the darkness. I’d reached for Royce’s hand to get him to slow down a little. We started talking about how fast the semester seemed to be moving. I was worried about midterms coming up.

  “Microbiology is killing me. I keep mixing up the names of all the diseases.”

  “I can help.” He snaked his fingers with mine. “Just think of something that has to do with me for every disease. Crazy associations help.”

  “That’s a terrible idea,” I said, laughing. “I don’t want to think of you and coccidioidomycosis.”

  “I don’t even know what that is.”

  “Valley fever,” I said. “It’s a fungal spore that embeds in your lungs.”

  “Oh, I can do this,” he said. “Coccidio-Royce-o-mycosis. I’m in your lungs. It works.”

  “No,” I laughed. I’ve always been able to rely on Royce to help cheer me up, which I’ve needed a lot since starting at Stanford. When I first got to school, I thought the hardest part would be the studying. I’d already been through so much the last year: discovering my family wasn’t documented, winning a national scholarship I wasn’t able to accept because of my status, fighting through deportation proceedings.

  Royce was there through everything. We even talked about getting married so I could get a green card and be naturalized, but I didn’t want to put that pressure on our relationship. I wanted America to want me because I was already a part of the fabric of the country. Not because I would be married to a politician’s son.

  All of that was only the beginning. I love Stanford, but I’ve had a hard time adjusting. I’m the first in my family to go to college. Everything my parents have done since our family moved to California from the Philippines has been to make sure I received the best education possible. Whenever I visit them in Los Angeles, I feel like I’m not quite part of the same family anymore. My parents and little brothers are excited for me. They ask questions about everything.

  Yet there’s still the nagging feeling that I’ve become a different person. I keep asking myself, “What’s my place here at Stanford?”

  I was able to push all those thoughts to the back of my mind, until the graffiti appeared on Jordan Hall. It reminded me I’m only living in the United States legally for now. It could quickly change. Something as sudden as a minor shift in government policy can tear families like mine from the dreams they’ve clung to their entire lives. It’s happening all over the country now.

  “Try again,” Royce said. He hadn’t given up trying to make me laugh. “I’m serious. Name another disease.”

  I squeezed Royce’s hand, thinking hard. Impossibly long disease names swam around my head with their confusing multisyllabic letter combinations.

  “Helicobacter pylori,” I blurted.

  “Perfect. ‘Helico.’ Sounds like a helicopter. ‘Pylori.’ Kind of sounds like ‘pyro,’ fire. So I want you to imagine me as a helicopter pilot—except the helicopter is on fire. See? Helicobacter pylori: Royce in a helicopter on fire.”

  “That was worse than the first one,” I said. “But I’ll probably use it.”

  * * *

  —

  DORM. On Monday night, after my microbiology lab, Royce and I watched a dumb comedy about three high school guys trying to get girls to go on dates with them before graduation. My mind wasn’t on the movie. Everything about college life—like fighting with your roommate about over-borrowing her flip-flops, or figuring out whose room is the best place to watch TV—seemed trivial. I turned down the volume and brought up the graffiti again.

  “I can’t get the image out of my head,” I said. “I feel like someone’s watching me every time I pass through the quad.”

  “But that’s how they want you to feel.” Royce was still half paying attention to the movie. “They might just be some immature frat boys. Don’t let them get under your skin. They’re probably somewhere laughing about it, thinking they got the whole school up in arms.”

  “You sure you saw the same graffiti as me?”

  Royce paused the movie. “Yeah, I saw. It was really shitty.”

  “Good. Just checking. Because you don’t seem to be nearly as worried.”

  “They’re words. That’s all. No one is going to hurt anyone.”

  “They’re words?” I echoed. “Where do you think violence starts?”

  Royce shrugged. “Just trying to make you feel better.”

  “I don’t want you to make me feel better. I want you to understand how students of color are feeling.” I got up from where I was sprawled across the bed. All I wanted to do was leave, but we were watching the movie in my dorm room.

  “Why are you making such a big deal about this?” Royce sat on the edge of the bed. He leaned toward me as if he thought a hug would make everything go away.

  I wasn’t about to be hugged. “Remember when you and I walked back to the dorms Sunday night? How late do you think that was? Midnight? Maybe a little after?”

  “I guess. Probably sometime around then. Why?”

  “Just play along,” I said. “If you’d been walking alone—if I wasn’t with you—what do you imagine you’d have been thinking about? I want you to be totally honest.”

  “I remember being kind of hungry. Maybe I would have been thinking about going to a diner or making ramen. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Exactly.” I edged farther away from the bed. It’s hard to explain, but I really wanted some space—like being too close to him physically would make me want to stop fighting. And I didn’t want to give up this fight. “You know what I would have been thinking about?”

  Royce didn’t say anything.

  “I wouldn’t have been thinking about anything except for my safety. I would have been tracking each of those blue emergency phones across the quad, calculating just how far I would have to run to reach one if someone were to attack me.”

  “Come on, Jas.” Royce sighed. “We’re at Stanford. What does that have to do with the graffiti?”

  “Everything,” I say, letting myself out of the room.

  * * *

  —

  JULIA HIGGINS. While leaning over the self-serve bar at the cafeteria to grab some fruit for breakfast, I overheard a couple of girls from another floor in my dorm talking about Julia Higgins. She’s a top track star who lives on the other side of my wing. As a sophomore, Julia had already placed third in the 800-meter race at the NCAA Championships. That girl is fierce.

  I was expecting the girls to say something about how she might have dumped her boyfriend, or maybe some kind of sorority rush drama. But I nearly dropped a chunk of pineapple into the giant serving bowl of strawberry yogurt when I heard what happened to her.

  “They spray-painted her entire car with racial slurs,” one girl said. “Does insurance cover that kind of thing? It’s going to be super expensive to fix.”

  “What was on the car?” her friend asked. “I assume…”

  It wouldn’t be hard to guess that Julia is African American based on what the graffiti said, or that the tagging on her car was a lot like the message plastered outside Jordan Hall. A message meant to intimidate students.

  Students like Julia. Students like me.

  “I don’t want to repeat it here,” the girl whispered. She glanced to see
whether anyone was listening. “I’ll tell you later. It was pretty bad.”

  “I feel so sorry for her,” the other said. “I heard people were taking pictures of her car and sharing them on Snapchat before she even found out.”

  “That’s messed up. Someone should have told her.”

  “Do you think they picked her at random?”

  “I heard she might take a break from the university. She feels targeted.”

  “Maybe it’s just a boyfriend thing. She does have enemies. I bet it’s that guy from the wrestling team she dated for a week.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. Everyone was so concerned with who committed these crimes, but no one seemed to care much about the targets. Just like the administration’s order to power wash graffiti off Jordan Hall as quickly as possible bothered me, the students circulating Snapchat photos bothered me too. It had become a sick form of entertainment. Maybe I was being sensitive, but I felt gross when I heard a few students in the dorms making jokes about the hate speech. My stomach churned when a meme started circulating. A line had been crossed.

  * * *

  —

  PRESIDENT ASHBY. It took nearly an entire day for the university administration to respond to the two campus incidents. President Ashby sent an email to all students saying that the incidents on campus weren’t representative of Stanford values. At first I felt good about what I was reading. Then I realized that our school president was going to do nothing other than send us all a reassuring email. I wasn’t reassured. No one was.

  One person’s words were never going to make me feel safe, especially someone like President Ashby, who had never known the kind of discrimination that people of color face every day. Maybe I couldn’t stop the graffiti from happening again, but I needed to act on my feelings.

  I had to find a way to let other people like me on campus, students who had been discriminated against or were hiding their documentation status, know that there were other students who were going through similar experiences and emotions. I needed to show up for them.

  And for myself.

  * * *

  —

  AVOIDING MEETINGS. Leaders of various campus cultural groups decided to hold a series of meetings, hinting about a rally. Maybe a march. I thought about showing up to a rally, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself—mainly because of my documentation status. What would Mom and Dad say if I started protesting? Just the thought of it made my head pound.

  I imagined Dad standing in front of me.

  “Neneng, you’d do this to us? You would go and put a target on your back? They would try to mess up everything around you,” he would say angrily. “And don’t think they would stop there. Maybe they would spray-paint your brothers’ school too. Then what? Our house? They would try to force us out of this country we’ve fought so hard to stay in.”

  * * *

  —

  AT THE GYM. Workout machines buzzed and whooshed. Metal clanked against metal. Royce and I were both sweating on the equipment.

  I swear those machines had gotten more difficult over the last year. I’d never stopped working out even though my cheerleading days had come to an end.

  We were walking past the free weights when a couple of meatheads lifting weights started laughing. One of them said loud enough for us to hear: “Look at that hot Asian chick.”

  “They’re too stuck-up to go out with me,” his buddy added.

  Royce was pissed off but didn’t say anything to them. Instead, he started complaining at me. “Why do guys do that?”

  “It’s not my fault,” I said. “There’s a jerk in every crowd.”

  “I didn’t say anything was your fault.”

  “It’s the way you said it.”

  “I just mean guys need to cool it.”

  I felt my cheeks redden. “Do you even know what it’s like to be a minority?” I said. “I mean, you’re half Mexican, but you look like a white boy, so you don’t know how sometimes you just want to hide, blend in, be one of the crowd because you already are in the crowd. And let’s face it, you don’t know what it’s like to be a girl.” I tried to keep my voice down, but it was difficult. “Before you start acting so overprotective, maybe you should consider what it’s like to be me when stupid, shallow guys talk about how they only want to date Asian girls. Or how I feel when someone tells me we all look the same, or how frustrating it is because we’re all born to lose. Try playing second banana to the pretty-white-girl standard.”

  “Jas…,” Royce said, trying to shush me.

  “I mean, seriously, I could go on, but why? Until you put yourself in my shoes, you won’t be able to understand guys like that outside of your own possessive feelings. No wonder you don’t understand the graffiti. You don’t think it has anything to do with you.”

  * * *

  —

  COME TOGETHER. I could feel myself growing angrier by the day. I’d thought about Dad lecturing me a hundred times. But I just couldn’t stay quiet. I found myself fuming every time I thought about the graffiti, the Snapchats, and those gym meatheads. Not to mention, I was very aware of how I’d been lashing out at Royce.

  Poor guy was an easy target. You know how those close to you tend to get the brunt of your worst feelings? I knew I had to go to the rally. It was the only place where this kind of anger could even begin to release in a positive way.

  Hundreds of students flooded the quad, all to reclaim the space the graffiti briefly tried to inhabit. We needed to cleanse the toxicity that the graffiti had spread across our campus. We were taking back the air, Jordan Hall, the negativity, the oppressive residue that scared so many of us to walk faster with our heads down. We came together through signs of solidarity, songs, chants, poems, food, love, and our mutual strength.

  Royce went with me to the quad. He had apologized outside the gym, and though I’d stormed away, he was patient. He knew I needed my space. I needed to claim that space for myself. I also realized that I truly had a place and purpose at Stanford. By all of us coming together to support each other, I discovered my own voice among the voices of others.

  It occurred to me, as if a letter slowly slipped through the sky, down past stars, through the dark, and fell into my hands, the words glistening there like their own kind of graffiti scrawled across my heart: We’re one voice when we want to be.

  My lower back is damp with sweat, but my hands remain cold. My heartbeat quickens as I drive closer to the pool. The parking lot is empty except for Coach’s car. It’s Monday. I’m the first one to practice, like always.

  If I can just make it through the locker rooms and into the pool, I’ll be okay. It’s half-true. The quiet usually silences everything. But everything could have changed after Saturday night’s Facebook post. Has the entire team read it? What are they thinking? Do they care? I can’t seem to make the move to open the door. My body seems to have another agenda—I remain paralyzed in my seat. The trapped air has gone stale inside the bubble of the car. I pull my hoodie up over my head. I wonder if Coach has already seen me pull in. Could I leave without him noticing? Can I give up now?

  I just have to get in that water. I run a hand over my chest, feeling the swimsuit underneath. My not-flat chest bulges and I resist the urge to push down the lumps—the remnants of a puberty that never fit. I used to dream of getting breast cancer. Horrible, I know. But then I wouldn’t have to explain why I wanted them cut off. I wouldn’t have to explain why my body never quite matched my gender.

  When I see Parker’s car pull around the corner, I frantically open the door and start moving. I don’t want to walk in with anyone. That would require too much conversation. I mean, maybe Parker would be okay. He’s always been nice to me. We even studied for the PSAT together last fall. But I don’t feel like dealing with the questions, even well-intentioned ones. I grab my plain black swim bag and hop down from the truck. Eyes glued to the pavement, I make for the entrance.

  As soon as I walk into the building, I’m
confronted by two doors: the left marked MEN and the right, WOMEN. I falter, remembering my words from Saturday’s post: “And I am proud of who I am. Please refer to me with he/him/his pronouns….”

  I can feel Parker’s presence behind me, but I hear only my own breath rushing in my ears. The panic is deafening and I want so badly to disappear, into the familiar misery of the women’s locker room. But there is no going back: 502 likes on my coming-out status tell me that most of my friends—my entire world—know.

  “Hey, Tommy,” Parker says. The word Tommy glows in my head. This is the first time anyone outside of my family has used my new name. There is no hint of difference in his voice and I find the power to move forward again, pushing open the door on the left. He walks in behind me.

  The layout of this locker room is entirely different from the women’s. There is only one sink and one stall. There are the urinals, of course. And it smells decidedly worse. I head straight into the stall to pee. Parker stays quiet as several other guys shuffle in behind us. I can see their shoes underneath the bathroom door. My hands revert to their clammy nervousness. Thank god I’ve already changed, I think. Enough firsts for one day.

  “What’s up, cunt?” Roman’s voice is obvious. Parker mumbles a response. Roman’s pack chuckles at what I imagine is Parker’s fear-filled face. I finish and open the door, backpack slung over my shoulder. Everyone falls silent.

  “Oh, look, it’s our little fag!” The words hit me harder than I had expected and I bend over slightly, feeling all the air leave my body. I look up at Roman, holding back my tears. I say nothing. The locker room seems to freeze for a moment. In the silence, I hear the muffled voices from the pool. The pool! Peace. Silence. Disappearance. They pull at me, beckoning, but I resist. Stand tall, I tell myself. Stand tall, even when they hurt you.